Final Project: 19-teens "Ophelia" Gown Bodice

I'm taking a Specialty Sewing Techniques course, which consists of different couture techniques and finishing methods. This is what I'm making for the final project:

For the project, we have to use at least 4 techniques we have learned in class and apply them to a blouse/shirt type garment. My techniques will be tucking, piping, beading, ruching and hem treatments. I'm going to make the gown in two pieces for now and put the two pieces together to complete the gown... just at a later date.

The turquoise silk cost me a mere 5 bucks for 6.5 yards!
Discounted Drapes. BOOYAAH!

 It's a vest type garment in a powdery turquoise silk with attached sleeves in a nice creme chiffon and ruching in net at the bust. There will be a copious amount of delicate tucking as trim in the blue silk and in the belt part. I'm also planning to have a beaded motif on the sleeves and overlay for the skirt. Look at the the beads I got! They go so prettily with it.

The colors are a little more muted in real life.

I was initially inspired by the actress Miss Lily Elsie. Her gowns and pictures are phenomenal. 

She has Rachel Weisz' profile.

Sigh

How perfect, right?

My second inspiration was the idea of Ophelia. Whenever I think of Ophelia (from Hamlet) I think of water lilies and consequently Lily Elsie.

I don't really care about the title, just the design.

It's so pretty!!!

The project has to be sent to Santa Fe, NM by June 3rd... leaving me 2 weeks to get it finished. Luckily, I only have to send in the bodice :D No sweat!

Regency Dress progress

So far this quarter, I've been trying to juggle taking a mere 12 credit hours (I normally take about 17), piano lessons and life. But here's the progress on the Regency dress!

Certainly not the most beautiful pic
of me, but there's the dress.

The pics have the dress pinned together (sans sleeves) in what I hope it will look like. I decided to gather them Corded style, so wonderfully explained by The Dreamstress...though, I did mine by hand instead of machine.

pretttttyyyyyy!

 I really like the cording method rather than a running stitch. It's way more secure and delivers the most gorgeous gathers! I do believe I will use this method of gathering from now on.

Notice the cream yarn? I'm using it for my cord instead of real cord. Why? It doesn't have a tendency to bulge, requires a very thin channel and I have a ton of it. Yay thriftiness!!!

Le View de Side

You can kinda see the cording on the skirt portion in the side view ANNNND you can also see the Apron-front line. I decided to do something a little different than the typical apron front bodices I've seen. I got the idea from the dress Marianne twists her ankle in.

I understand this is not Marianne, but
it is the same dress, just from Persuasion (2007)

Now, I realize that these pics are not of Marianne, but for viewing purposes, the stills from Persuasion (2007) are a lot more illustrative. The bodice piece is a gathered trapezoid creating a more seamless effect, so in theory, you won't be able to tell if it's an apron front or not... but we'll see how sneaky I actually am later on, when it's closer to finished.*crosses fingers*

See how the lines are angled?

I'm still not positive on the style of the sleeves yet. I'm torn between elbow length or cap. Sometimes I wish I could do both, but it would look rather silly.

I'm in a BOOK!!!

Hello friends, I wanted to announce that I have been blurbed about in an official Star Wars Book!!

OOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!!!

 In Feb 2010, I was interviewed via email, by Bonnie Burton, to be featured on the Official Star Wars blog. I had been checking that blog every day for 9 months and was somewhat disappointed that I hadn't seen anything on there yet. Then I got the email that perked up my spirits... She had chosen to put me in her newest book, The Star Wars Craft Book! It came in today.....and here I am!

AAAHHHHH!!!!!!

If any of you get a hold of the book, I'm on page 102 and am featured for my General Grievous. As a Star Wars fanatic, I can't tell you how honored/excited/awesome it feels just to have that little blurb in there :)
Aside from me, there's some awesome crafts that I think I may do in the near future. My faves are the Cantina Band spoons and Ewok Hat. AHHH, I want to make them noowwwww!!!! I was like a nerd at Comic-Con. ( BTW, I will attend in the near future). Other features include blurbs about Sammi Resendes, Kayla Kromer, and Amanda Jean Camarillo. All of which have made some pretty awesome things. 

All in all, the book is a great book for adults AND kids, I highly suggest you purchase it.

P.S.
Speaking of Star Wars, I have a new shirt to show off:

DAWWWW.

A surprise gift from my friend Travis of Debugging-Life It has become one of my favorite shirts of all times. Thanks man!

Phew, What a day... What. A. Day. :D

Early Regency Dress, start-up

For my first Regency Dress, I have chosen to do a really simple style to be as a "basic" dress for my wardrobe.

It's a simple cotton print and I believe it might be mattress ticking, but it's awful thin. The fabric is pretty sheer and wrinkles easy, as you can tell. I've got 14 yards of it, so if I mess up, there's more to use! My only fear with the fabric is how stiff it gets when you iron it. I washed it twice to get the sizing out and break it down a bit. It turned to a lovely drape, but the ironing is kind of worrisome. Darn stuff.


For the style, I turned to one of my favorite movies. I really love the dresses in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility. Most have the slightly lower waistline and very drapey fabrics that make my heart go a flutter.

I love the drawsting neckline and sheer fabric

It will be more full like this gown,
and will also have 3/4th sleeves

The entire dress will be handstitched; like the short stays and petticoat I made to go under it.

Randomness.

This has nothing to do with much, but it's cool. I scanned my face and this was the outcome:

It's like I'm stuck under the ice!

My hair looks cool

BIG NEWS!

!!!!I am going to be interning at Colonial Williamsburg this summer!!!!

I will be working in the Margaret Hunter Millinery/Mantua Maker Shop, making lots of pretty things and being far away from home! AHHHHHH!!!!!! I'm so excited :)

The Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop

 Part of the reason I am ecstatic about this opportunity stems from my visit to Colonial Williamsburg when I was about 11 or 12. My family and I had gone to visit and I wanted a dress like the girls had in the brochure that we had. So we all went over to the Margaret Hunter shop to check it out. I was overwhelmed when we first walked in. There were ladies at the counter, all dressed to the 9's in their Colonial Outfits, embroidering diligently on Lady Dunmore's gown. Off to the corner, I remember a little girl, about my age, also working diligently on a little something. All at once she got up in excitement and said to the nearest lady at the counter, "I think I figured out how they do this!"  Can I tell you how jealous I was of that other girl???? Very. I wanted to be at Colonial Williamsburg, working on something, while wearing pretty clothes..... And it turns out, that little hope I had as a child is going to come true!

Now, I only need a place to stay/sublease/rent. I haven't had much luck in the 2 days I have been looking, but hopefully something will turn up.

Darth Maul Amigurumi progress

GRRRRRRR!!!

 I've been working here and there on Darth Maul's face since winter break started, and decided to scrap what I had originally made to make a new one. Here's the original flub:

it's truly disgusting.

See how grotesque it is? It looks like the clown from the SAW movies with red and black detailing. Gross!

After inspecting my fail, I decided that I used the wrong hook (which is why the thing was as big as my own head) I was color changing wrong and I didn't really think about what I was doing while making it. This time I've thought it through, am color changing correctly (I think?) and I'm using a much smaller hook, which produces much cleaner results :)

Here's what I've got so far:

muuuch better.

I'm able to get a little more detail and sharpness in the lines about his face, all due to the smaller hook. The rest of the detailing will come with embroidery, as there's no way to get such lines in color-changes.

The contours of the head and face are also
very nice this go 'round

Contour. This is something the original dearly lacked. It was really just a big ball with color changes that I stuffed and cinched to get somewhat of a face and produced a weird lumpy head and nasty, nasty face. This one looks much better :) I'm hoping to finish the head by Friday. Woo!

BIRTHDAY APRON!

Today, I turned 21. Can you guess what I did for my birthday?

Only what every girl would do....

 I made an apron for myself! 

Pretty Cute huh?

The inspiration was from Jessie Steele, an apron site I happened to find a week ago. Her aprons are adorable and ever so classy. I simply had to make one.

This is the one I like the most:

Jessie Steele Black and White Apron

......so I decided to make it Sailor style, because I love sailor stuff.

Fabric wise, I used some leftover navy fabric from my 1780's Caraco/Petticoat and some white bias tape. For the skirt, I used a flared half apron from the 50's as my skirt pattern template. The pocket was a quick whack-job of an applique
*NOTE*I've never done an applique before and just barreled through it, only looking at a tutorial for applique's after I had it already been attached 

For the Bib, I draped some muslin for the pattern, giving a dart on each side, to give it a little more shape. It's only cute if it fits!

and in 6 hours and 2 seasons of the office later....

VOILA!

SAILOR APRON!

I'm sorry I don't have any construction pics. It was an "on-a-whim" project that I was so focused on finishing, that taking pictures was the farthest from my mind. I plan to make a couple more aprons and experiment with different fits. I'll be sure to take more pics for the coming ones.

Donald?

Ouchies

I've not posted in a while, I realize, since I am still very busy with my classes.

Speaking of classes! I was forced to attend a late night salsa/samba workshop for OU's International Dance and Music Week (which was last week or the week before?) and got this lovely jewel:

THAT is a blood-blister, my friends. It's still deep in the skin, and will probably be there for the next month. Just thought I'd show you what's up ;)

Belated Valentine's Day post

First Date 10/20/07

As you all know, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Though Devin and I weren't able to do anything for Valentine's Day due to conflicting schedules I did make him a giant peanut butter pie with Reeses cups on Sunday and for Valentine's Day I got a surprise email from him that was so adorable it made me cry. I'll spare you the mushiness and just pepper you with some cute...and not so cute pictures :)

Prom 2008

After-Prom 2008

New York ATD Trip 2008

Devin biting my face off
Chicago ATD Trip 2008

Wash. D.C. Trip 2010

Christmas 2010

Me and my Mr Darcy :D